The Pearl Diver

by Jeffrey Quyle

  When he awoke, he felt Mata’s arm draped over top of him, and her long body was pressed against the back of his, while he faced away from the bed, looking out at the far wall and the window that showed the dark night sky beyond.

  Silas slowly rolled off the bed, slipping slowly out from under Mata’s hug, then picked up his pack and pulled out the mirror. The first scene he spied was the dark and empty dressing room at the Healers campus in Barnesnob. He rebagged the mirror, and pulled it out again, showing the mirror in the princess’s dressing room in Amenozume, candles lit, and a note stuck to the mirror.

  “Where are you? Call for me!” Jade had written in large, thick letters.

  “Jade, this is Silas. Are you ready to come visit?” he called out to his friend. “Jade, this is Silas. I’m awake now. Let me see you,” he urgently delivered his message, while he sat with the mirror in front of him. He sat for a minute, watching the mirror expectantly, until Jade came flying into his field of vision.

  “Are you okay?” she mouthed the words.

  “I fell asleep. We’re fine,” Silas spoke the words aloud.

  Jade listened, then rolled her eyes. “Meet us in twenty minutes, at the same place,” she mouthed the words again.

  Silas nodded, then put the mirror down.

  He wished Minnie from the caravan had a mirror that he could connect to, or Ruten had one, for that matter – though he couldn’t picture Ruten ever bothering to look in a mirror. He wanted a trusted advisor, someone he knew cared, to tell him what to do. Or at least, he wanted to be told he was doing okay up to that point in his adventure. It all was happening moment by moment. He was reacting to events, and not sure what the next catalyst would be to drive him to try to take action. He felt the uncertainty building on his nerves.

  And for the time being, he was trapped in the tiny bubble of the two or three people from the palace, and – to some degree – Hamilton, to be his supporters and advisors in the challenging adventure of helping Mata.

  “I’m going to go fetch your sister. You stay here,” he idly told Mata as he stood and prepared to leave.

  “Mmh, hmm,” she sleepily murmured a response.

  Silas’s eyes widened. He stepped over to the bed and knelt down by the side, then took Mata’s hand in both of his.

  “Are you awake?” he asked.

  “I’m dreaming,” she answered in a slurred voice. “It’s a nice dream.”

  Silas smiled at the injured woman’s perception.

  “You stay here and sleep. I’ll come back and make it even a better dream,” he promised.

  “Will you kiss me before you go?” Mata asked, her eyes still closed.

  Silas gave a soft chuckle as he stood, then leaned down and kissed Mata’s cheek. He was still smiling when he slipped out the door and began the descent down the stairs to go and make his rendezvous with Mata’s sister.

  Chapter 10

  Silas was still smiling when he found three women waiting for him minutes later.

  “Who’s she?” he asked Jade.

  “This is Gwen,” Jade replied motioning to the third woman, who was wrapped in dark clothing, just as the other two visitors were. Silas had been sure Jade would come; he hadn’t been as sure about Mene’s return, and Gwen’s addition to the group threw him for a complete surprise.

  “She spoke to me just before I came down,” Silas told Jade.

  “Oh Silas!” Jade hugged him enthusiastically.

  The group turned and followed Silas as he began leading the way to the small refuge above the city. Silas heard someone stumble, and then heard a voice that he presumed was Gwen’s, grumbling about walking in total darkness.

  “Everyone put a hand on the person in front of you,” he suggested mildly, just before starting up the steps from the lobby to the floor above. He slowly led his short cavalcade along the route. Jade’s hand on his shoulder squeezed tightly, a sign to Silas of her anticipation that she would soon see Mata one again.

  Someone behind stumbled once more as they climbed the stairs up to the fifth-floor apartment, and Silas heard a stream of oaths that would have done Prima’s waggoneers proud, quickly followed by a shushing noise.

  When they reached the fifth-floor landing and started down the hallway, Silas heard Gwen mutter, “How can he even see anything? How does he know where he is?”

  “Have you seen his eyes?” Mene whispered back.

  “And my hearing’s not so bad either,” Silas spoke through the darkness with a grin.

  “Mind your own business and get us where we need to be,” Gwen groused.

  “We’re here,” Silas replied. He opened the door, and led the group into the room.

  “Who’s there?” Mata’s voice asked sharply. “Where am I?”

  “Mata?” Jade’s voice replied with heart-breaking emotion. She released her hold on Silas, and plunged into the room in the direction of Mata’s voice.

  “Whoa!” Mene’s voice spoke sharply, as Jade broke away from her, while Silas fumbled with the steel and flint on the table, and managed to strike a spark that caught on the wick of the small lantern in the room. He hurriedly breathed on the glowing spot on the wick and brought it to flame, then closed the small glass chimney, providing dim light that allowed the others to see about the barely-furnished room.

  Jade and Mata were crying upon each other as they hugged on the bed, while Mene looked at them with a wistful expression. Gwen stood with her back against the closed door, and kept her eyes on Silas, studying him intently. She looked like a hawk watching a mouse, Silas thought sourly.

  “Jade, how did this happen? How did I wake up here? I feel so much better; the pain is next to nothing,” Mata sobbed.

  “Silas did it. He rescued you, and he’s tended you,” Jade explained as the two sisters pulled apart. They both turned to look at Silas, with eyes that were shining, still full of teary moisture.

  “I think you’re going to be fine,” Silas said awkwardly. “And we’re going to find a way to move you to someplace safe.”

  “We’ll find you passage on board the first ship we can,” Mene spoke up for the first time.

  “My princess!” Mata spoke with a voice that was filled with awe.

  Silas whipped his head to look at Mene, knowing that Mata had correctly and immediately seen through the mild disguise that had baffled Silas.

  “Your highness,” he said awkwardly, then clumsily bowed down on one knee. “My apologies for not recognizing you.” In his mind’s eye, he was suddenly able to see that the woman he had seen in the mirror was the same woman who had a scarf wrapped protectively around her head, leaving only her face visible.

  “It’s alright Silas. I’m sure I look different with my clothes on compared to the times you’ve seen me in the dressing room mirror, but this accomplishment is so extraordinary that all is forgiven,” she spoke mockingly.

  Silas saw that Gwen’s hands were balled in fists of anger at the thought of Silas peeping at the undressed princess.

  “I didn’t; I don’t,” Silas began to object, then remembered one time when he had let his gaze linger a moment longer than he should have.

  “Oh Silas!” the princess burst out laughing. “Rise to your feet. Let’s celebrate Mata’s freedom!”

  “Silas, it wasn’t a dream? You were really with me a short while ago, when I first started to wake up?”

  “Right before I went to bring these others here,” he agreed as he rose to his feet.

  There was a sudden clap of thunder.

  “I was told that there’s a bad storm moving in, and there won’t be much shipping for the next few days,” Silas blurted out as he suddenly was reminded of Hamilton’s warning.

  “Keep it to yourself for now,” Gwen told him.

  “Tell me what happened!” Mata spoke up. “I was in that place, and it was horrible,” she said. “Princess, your prison is evil.”

  “Let me hear your story,” Princess Lumene said grimly, as she loosened the scarf she ha
d wrapped around her head.

  And so Mata began. The princess sat in a chair, and Mata told the story of being beaten in the prison by the guards, then dragged up to the tower in recent days.

  “There was a little food and water served once a day in the tower,” she told her audience. “And it felt evil, like something there hated me and wanted to eat me. I felt weaker and weaker with every day that passed, and there was constant pain, like sharp needles in my skin.

  “How did you rescue me?” she turned her eyes to Silas.

  He began to tell his tale in halting terms, beginning with his journey from the eastern wilderness to Barnesnob, and then his frightening excursion into the prison.

  He paused, then described what he had seen in the tower before he had rescued Mata. The others listened with ashen faces as he described the apparition in the room at the top, and the abandoned bodies in the other tower prison cells.

  “I think that would have happened to Mata too, if I hadn’t found her just then,” he explained to his grim audience.

  He went on to describe the trip back through the sewer with Mata in tow behind him through the rushing water, and finally he explained how he had used the mirror to speak to Dianu to learn how to make the medicines he had applied to Mata during the day.

  “No one in the world but you could have saved her!” Jade spoke admiringly.

  “She isn’t safe yet. We need to get her out of the city,” the princess spoke up. “Either on board a ship to the mainland, or at least into the mountains in southern part of the island.”

  Silas felt his heart skip a beat with delight at the thought of fleeing to the mountains to hide. There was no environment he would feel more secure in, or better prepared for.

  “I think I need to sail away,” Mata spoke up a split second later. “I wouldn’t feel safe on the island, not with that evil power from the tower here. It would haunt me.”

  Silas bit his lip. He wouldn’t mention his desire to visit the mountains after all. If Mata wanted to leave the island, he would take her away, no questions asked. They could go to any number of places around the continent, and then….

  He didn’t know what would happen once Mata was safe. It was a decision that would have to be made, but not at that moment.

  “We’ll give you money so that you can buy passage on a ship, after the storm passes, if there is a storm,” the princess told Mata.

  “Your highness, that is very gracious of you. I’ll repay you someday, I promise,” Mata clenched her hands together in front of her.

  “If we have to wait for this supposed storm, the girl may be exposed or be in danger here,” Gwen inserted herself into the conversation. “I think the mountains would be a faster, surer, escape for her.”

  “I know the ways of the mountains. I was born and raised in a mountain village,” Silas spoke up. “I could keep her safe.”

  “I don’t want to go to the mountains,” Mata asserted.

  “We know you say you brought the girl here all on your own as a big hero, but other than funny-colored eyes and some tricks with your voice, I don’t know that we’ve got reason to believe that you could keep the girl safe in the mountains,” Gwen was openly skeptical of Silas.

  “There’s no reason to fight about this right now,” Jade attempted to interrupt the brewing conflict.

  “With all that I’ve proven as a friend to Jade and Mata, why should we listen to the bad manners of a girl who can’t even climb a dark set of stairs without tripping?” Silas was irritated by Gwen’s belittling of his abilities. He’d traveled across a vast distance just to save Mata, and done it successfully under difficult circumstances.

  “Enough!” the princess spoke sharply. “This is my personal bodyguard, and I expect her to be treated respectfully.” She looked at Silas as she spoke. “And this man has proven his ability, friendship, and trustworthiness,” she turned to Gwen as she continued.

  “Boy, more than man,” Gwen muttered.

  “We all need to return to the palace,” the princess told her two companions. “We’ll plan to return tomorrow night, and we’ll see if this storm appears on the horizon, then make a decision.

  “Mata, do you feel comfortable and safe staying here with Silas tonight, or should we find a room at an inn for you?” the princess looked at Mata as she stood up.

  “Silas saved my life! I’m safe to stay here, as safe as I’d be anywhere else. And I really don’t even know where I am, anyway,” Mata replied.

  “Silas, you’ll take good care of her, and treat her properly?” Lumene turned to Silas once again.

  “Yes, absolutely, your highness,” he replied.

  “I trust him,” Mata spoke up.

  “We’ll be on our way; Silas lead us out, and don’t let Gwen stub her toe this time,” Lumene kept a straight face as she motioned for Silas to lead, while a deep frown covered the face of the bodyguard in response.

  Silas did lead them down the stairs and back out of the warehouse, to the street level, where the trio bid a quiet farewell, then disappeared in the maze of streets that wound through the heart of the city. Silas reclimbed the stairs, breathing heavily by the time he re-entered the room.

  “Silas?” Mata spoke immediately. “Do you have anything to eat, and is there a place I can go?”

  “Go where?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Go,” she paused delicately, “to relieve myself.”

  He nodded towards the bedpan that was partially visible under the bed, and shrugged apologetically. “I’ll step out for a minute. I can take it down to the drain and pump and clean it out,” he tried to sound cheerful about the task, as he left the room again.

  A minute later he knocked, then cautiously entered.

  “Thank you! I feel much better,” the girl was genuine in her gratitude.

  “Here’s all the food I’ve brought up here,” Silas showed her the cupboards where he had placed his small hoard of goods. “Help yourself, and I’ll be back soon.”

  When he returned from the long, vertical round trip, Mata was happily chewing on a chunk of bread.

  “Where are we?” she asked. “And what are you doing here? What day is it?”

  “We’re in a room on an upper floor of a warehouse by the harbor, near the shipping docks,” Silas answered. He proceeded to tell a long, winding story about his path back to Amenozume. He showed her the mirror he carried, and she looked at the various connected sites the mirror showed, and then they talked about the future.

  “I am ready to leave,” Mata said firmly. “I can stay away until the troubles die down here. There’s nothing for me to stay for, other than Jade,” she pointed out. “I’ll never be able to dive for pearls again.”

  “I think we’ll be safe here in this room if we have to wait a few days,” Silas accepted her decision. “And then we can sail to the mainland.”

  “You don’t have to take me,” Mata objected. “I’m not going to be a flotsam that drifts along in your wake for the rest of your life.”

  “But you could use someone to help you find the right place to settle on the mainland. I’ll have to go back anyway,” Silas pointed out. “I don’t have any future here on Amenozume either.”

  They settled on an agreement to travel to the mainland together, as Silas put his mirror back in his pack. His hand brushed against a flexible item in the pack, and he realized it was the second message that Prim had given him to deliver, a note to take to Avaleen.

  He needed to go to Avaleen. Yet he believed that Avaleen was the target of the Ivaric invasion force his mirror had shown him being armed for battle. Did he want to risk going to Avaleen, and could he subject Mata to the risk as well, when she was supposed to be fleeing to safety?

  The conversation continued, as he explained the new conundrum, and they debated what to do. They sat on the bed and talked. Silas turned off the lantern to conserve oil, and they lay on the bed, talking further, until they drifted off to sleep late in the evening.

  Chapter 1
1

  Silas and Mata awoke at nearly the same time in the morning, both aroused by a loud crash of thunder, and the sudden onset of heavy rain striking their window. Mata rose first, and stared out the window.

  “I can barely see the water in the harbor, the rain’s coming down so hard,” she commented. “But there are white caps where the water should be calm.

  “If this is the storm you were predicting, then we’re going to be stuck here for a few days,” she turned and faced Silas.

  “Let me show you something,” Silas rose from the bed and stretched.

  “What are you going to show?” Mata asked dubiously.

  “Look here,” he proceeded to show the hidden escape hole that Hamilton had shown him. “And if it weren’t raining, I’d show you that the window ledge is wide enough to step out on. If somehow, we do have trouble here, we’ll have a couple of ways to escape, at least for a little while.”

  “What kind of business are you in? I thought you were an honest trader,” Mata asked skeptically, with one eyebrow raised.

  “I am, or I thought I was. I’m not really much of a trader,” he began to explain. “I really just drove a wagon for the most part. I had no idea there was anything like this involved.” As he said it, he thought once again that Prima, Minnie, and Ruten seemed to be in a class above and apart from what he’d expect from typical traders. If he were to ever find them again, he’d have to openly ask them who they were and what they did.

  But that was for a different time, in the uncertain future.

  The pair settled into a lazy day in their room. Silas applied more of the leftover medications to Mata. The girl appeared ill at ease at times, jumping when thunder crashed unexpectedly close.

  “I think I’d like to take a nap,” she told Silas apologetically at midday.

  “That’s alright,” he told her, an idea of his own ready to spring into action. “I can go to the armory nearby and practice my sword work while you sleep,” he proposed.

  Mata nodded her head in agreement, pleased that she wouldn’t bore him by falling asleep.

  Silas made his way to the armory that Hamilton had offered, and found the building with ease. There were few men in the facility, and when Silas began to practice with one of the weighted, wooden practice swords offered there, he was quickly offered a pair of matches by members of the club eager for someone fresh to practice against.